I’m thrilled to chat with Modern Reformation’s digital editor Brooke Ventura and author Aimee Byrd on biblical womanhood and what current shifts indicate about the various ways women have participated and continue to participate in the life of the church today.

Sample the conversation below and click HERE to read the full round-table discussion.

__________________

Brooke Ventura: How then does Scripture talk about women? What do we learn about her from the portraits we see in redemptive history?

Nana Dolce: If Scripture is above all the story of God, then it reveals a God who honors and cares for women. The first poem we read in the Bible is an ode to Eve and these lyrics are the only human words recorded pre-Fall. Following the Fall, Scripture’s attention to Eve remains. Consider this: the protoevangelium—the first gospel announcement in Genesis 3:15—describes the promised Savior, not as the Son of God, but as the seed of the woman. That’s incredible—but it’s not isolated. Long before the resurrected Jesus made women His first witnesses, narratives of Old Testament women testified of Christ. We often speak of Deborah’s leadership (and indeed there’s much to glean there), but consider Heber’s housewife Jael, the clear Christ-figure in that passage–she crushes the head of an enemy who dies at her feet (Judges 5:26-27)! And what of Abigail, the woman who rescued an entire household by bearing the guilt of another (1 Samuel 25:24)? And afflicted and outcast Hagar who testifies to the Living One who sees and hears, a sharp contrast to the lifeless, blind, and deaf idols of Egypt. In 1 Peter 3:7, we learn that God is a Father who gives an inheritance to His sons and daughters, these are women who must be treated with honor, lest a man’s prayers be hindered. From Eve to the last bride in Revelation, the Bible shows God proclaiming His love and gospel through the stories and images of women.